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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Boulettes - Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I should never let my imagination loose in the French peasant kitchen. I find it terribly hard to leave and tend to overstay my welcome. I do, however, hope you'll indulge me if I linger there another day or two. I have some recipes I want to share with you. The frugality of French housewives is legend and their ability to transform the simplest of table scraps into delicious meals only serves to magnify the legend. It does sometimes seem they have the ability to make something out of nothing. Many of you will be serving roast beef for Passover or the Easter holiday. You're bound to have leftovers and boulettes - meatballs - are a great way to use leftover cooked beef. These are very easy to make and they are wonderfully flavorful. Credit for the recipe should go to Jacques Pepin who, while a celebrity chef, is also a wonderful teacher and author. If you have a food processor, preparation of the meatballs and their sauce will go quickly and you can have dinner on the table in less than an hour. The texture of these meatballs is quite soft. If you find they refuse to hold their shape, add small amounts of breadcrumbs until they can be formed, but don't overdo it. The sauce in which the meatballs simmer has diabolical color, but no heat. It is quite thick and you may want to thin it with stock or white wine. The boulettes can be served with pasta or rice, but I love to serve them with French gnocchi, a dish we'll explore tomorrow. Here's how the boulettes are made.

Directions:
1) To make meatballs: Put meat in a food processor and process until finely chopped. In a large bowl, mix flour with baking powder and salt. Add chopped meat, onion, celery, garlic, thyme, pepper and eggs and mix with your hands until thoroughly blended. Form mixture into 16 meatballs and flatten slightly.
2) To fry meatballs: Heat 1/4-inch oil in a large skillet until it shimmers. Add meatballs and cook over high heat until browned on bottom. Turn meatballs, reduce heat to moderate and cook until browned on second side, about 3 minutes. Transfer meatballs to a large plate.
3) To make sauce: Heat oil in a medium saucepan. Add garlic, onion, thyme and oregano and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 4 minutes. Add tomatoes, cover and cook over moderate heat for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Using an immersion blender, puree sauce until slightly chunky; alternatively, puree the sauce in a food processor and return the sauce to the saucepan. Set aside.
4) To prepare olives: Put olives into a small saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Immediately drain and add to tomato sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Add meatballs and heat through. Serve with pasta, rice or gnocchi Parisienne. Yield: 4 servings.

Jacques Pepin is one of my favourites; love his calming voice and his recipes. I remember making meatballs when my boys were growing up(french canadian was always spoken in our house) and they would call them bullets.Rita

I've never done (or seen) a recipe for meatballs using cooked beef. So glad your mind arrived in Provence and continues to linger about. Stay as long as you like and I'll be checking to see what you come up with.

These look so good! You should make them for me! I actually really don't like spaghetti--even though most noodles seem to be created equal, the way it feels just grosses me out. I'm always guilty of being a brat and picking out the meatballs. :)

You have such a pretty, yummy blog. You should have me over for dinner!

Those look tasty! I never thought of meat balls with left over Roast Beef.

I too, hate to waste food. Generally I only have a total of 6 days to cook a month and the rest of the time I'm stuck in campfood. So the 3 days before I head home I do meal planning and I do try to make things that will have little waste and/or can be used in another recipe. I also freeze what I can to bring up with me. You can blame quitting smoking and camp food for this extra 15lbs (*cough* maybe a bit of laziness after a 10 hour work day too. haha) so I try to bring my own grub since it has half the sodium and fat!!

My father-in-law is Italian, not French, but he too is a master at recycling table scraps, and (meat)balls are a staple. We often make it a game of guessing what is in the balls (saurkraut was tough to guess), but it always tastes great. These meatballs look delicious, and it's a great idea to post this just before Easter!

Mary. . .Thank you so much for stopping by His Way or Her Way and leaving a comment. We are just getting the blog started. I found your blog to be exceptional. You are doing a fabulous job on it. Blessings. . .

This looks so tasty! No need for pasta! Thank you for sharing this recipe :)I wanted to let you know that I have tagged you in an Easter menu tag game, I was invited by the cajunlicious blogger. Please visit my blog to find out more and to participate.All the best, Natasha from the Rambles and Shambles blog!

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